Filming in Charlotte: Permits, Locations and What to Plan For

A marketing team planning a shoot in Charlotte usually asks the permit question late, a week out, once the locations are picked. It is better asked first. Whether you need permission, and from whom, depends entirely on where the camera is standing, and some of the answers take longer to get than people expect.

Here is how filming permission actually works in Charlotte, what the city and state ask for, and what we plan for on every location shoot. One caveat before the detail: rules and fees change, so treat this as the map, not the final word, and confirm the specifics with the agency that controls your location.

Do you need a permit to film in Charlotte?

Only for some locations. If you are filming on private property with the owner’s permission, such as your own office, plant or store, the city is usually not involved. If you are filming on public property, or your shoot affects a street, a sidewalk or public parking, you need to talk to the city first.

The question to ask of every location is simple: who controls this place? A private building answers to its owner. A city street answers to the city. A state park answers to the state. Each one has its own process, and the North Carolina Film Office is clear on that point. It describes itself as not a permitting agency, though it helps productions get permits, and it notes that each jurisdiction handles permitting its own way.

So a permit plan cannot be written until the locations are locked. Change the location and you may change who you ask.

Who do you contact first?

The Charlotte Regional Film Commission. The City of Charlotte’s right-of-way permit page tells anyone filming to contact the commission, and the commission runs an apply-to-film form that asks for the production, the dates and the locations needed. It covers a 16-county region across both Carolinas with Charlotte as its hub, and it offers liaison with federal, state, county and city government, information on local filming procedures, and a searchable location database.

For a marketing shoot, the commission is the front door. Tell them where you want to film and what you are doing there, and they can route you to whoever controls the location.

On our projects this sits with us, not with the client. Location agreements, insurance paperwork and releases for anyone on camera are all part of pre-production, and we cover where they land in the schedule in what actually happens in pre-production.

When does the city get involved?

When your shoot occupies the street. Charlotte’s Department of Transportation, CDOT, issues Right-of-Way Use Permits. For filming, the city’s page says a Right-of-Way Use Application for filming is needed if the request is to close a street or sidewalk, or to park in an area that is not metered. Metered spaces go through the city’s Park It parking office instead, which issues its own permits and sets the fees.

Three details from the city’s page are worth planning around:

• A full street closure needs a detour plan and advance notice to emergency services. A sidewalk closure needs suitable provision for pedestrians.
• Closures are not allowed between 7 and 9am or between 4 and 6pm, Monday to Friday, because of traffic.
• Requests have to follow CDOT’s Work Area Traffic Control Handbook, known as WATCH.

There is a fee, paid before the permit is approved: a non-refundable application fee and a daily fee that depends on the type of closure. The city says these can change each fiscal year, so check the current figures when you apply.

How much notice should you give?

More than the minimum. CDOT says its staff will review, approve and issue a right-of-way permit 72 hours from initial contact, and that full street closure requests should be submitted at least 10 days before the closure date.

State property runs on a longer clock. The North Carolina Film Office says filming in a state park starts with an online application at least two weeks before the shoot, followed straight away by contact with the park superintendent and an on-site permit application. There is a $35 special activity fee if the application is accepted, and the parks division can ask for a performance bond to protect natural resources. More widely, the Film Office says the state charges minimal fees, if any, to film on available state property, but there can be charges if park staff or law enforcement are needed.

We treat the official lead time as the floor, not the plan. A location that needs a closure, a park or a police presence goes into the schedule weeks out.

What about private property?

Private property is the owner’s call, and the owner usually has more rules than the city. A working building has hours, safety rules, areas you cannot enter and people who still have jobs to do.

When we shot Coofandy’s campaign with Christopher Bell inside Joe Gibbs Racing’s headquarters in Huntersville, the race shop set the schedule. The pit crews train in the mornings, so the pit practice area and the gym were only available to us after 1pm, and every location in the plan was built around that. We wrote about that day in six months of campaign content from one day at Joe Gibbs Racing.

What a property owner will want is predictable: a written agreement covering where you can go and when, proof of insurance, and an understanding of how many people and how much gear are coming. Get those settled before the date is fixed, not after. And remember that permission to film a building is not permission to film the people in it. Anyone recognizable on camera needs a signed release.

Do you need permission to fly a drone?

Yes, from the federal government rather than the city. The Federal Aviation Administration says a drone under 55 pounds flown for work or business has to follow its Part 107 rules. The pilot needs a Remote Pilot Certificate, which means passing an FAA knowledge test, and the drone has to be registered with the FAA. And the FAA says a pilot flying under 400 feet in the controlled airspace around airports must get an airspace authorization before the flight, which matters in a city built around Charlotte Douglas.

The property owner still has a say too, so drone work needs a certified pilot and a line in the location agreement. We used a drone on our film for Chesapeake Containment Systems, flown across steep working sites, and both sides were settled before anyone arrived.

How do locations change the plan and the budget?

Every location is a move, and moves cost time. Picking locations close together is one of the simplest ways to protect a shoot day, because the hours you are not driving or reloading are hours the camera is rolling.

Public locations add a layer of unpredictability you cannot fully plan away: weather, crowds, noise, traffic. For our Walmart x MLS series with FootballCo, the second day was a live Charlotte FC match, filmed around real fans inside a local venue and outside the stadium. That kind of day is planned differently from a scripted one, and we explain how in covering a live event you cannot direct.

Sometimes the right answer is to bring the location indoors. Interviews, products and anything that needs a repeatable look often move faster in a controlled room than on a street that needs a closure. We run our own studio on Monroe Road for exactly that, and the details are on the studio page. For how location and studio decisions fit into a wider North Carolina shoot, see our guide to video production in North Carolina.

What should a marketing team actually do?

Very little, if your production partner is doing its job. Your part is to tell them early which places matter to the story and which are flexible. A location that has to be your flagship store is fixed. A location that just needs to look like a busy street can move to wherever the permission is simplest.

From there, the production team should come back with a location plan naming who controls each place, what permission it needs, how long that takes, and the fallback if it is refused.